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I really despise the term “variety show” with all its kitschy “Sonny and Cher,” “Captain & Tenille” and “Carol Burnett Show” connotations. But how else to describe this week’s Chicago Live! lineup? A little bit newsy, a little bit rock ‘n’ roll. And plenty more. Consider the guests: • Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle will talk onstage with Tribune political reporter Rick Pearson about how she has been shaking things up with hospital funding, talk of layoffs and other bold initiatives to control the county’s budget. • Chicago supergroup Candy...

Ann Christophersen, co-owner of Women and Children First bookstore in the Andersonville neighborhood, turned to Linda Bubon, her longtime business partner and scowled at the table that had been set up on a riser at the back of their store. The actress...

Before there was a King of Pop, Helen Reddy was being called the Queen of ’70s Pop thanks to her string of 15 Billboard top 40 songs and three chart toppers, starting with the anthemic “I Am Woman.”
This rich-voiced, auburn-haired Australia native was...

January
Insane City by Dave Barry (Putnam) The Pulitzer Prize-winning humorist's first solo adult novel in more than a decade is a typically absurdist comic story about everything — and then some — that goes wrong for Seth and his friends en route to his...

Despite its fresh-faced cast, G-rating and untainted, unapologetic air of jubilance (see, please, the two exclamation points, both of which are quite sincere), "Glee Live! In Concert!" seemed very much at home in Las Vegas, where the stars of...

Bob Banner, an Emmy Award-winning television producer and director whose credits included "The Garry Moore Show," "Candid Camera" and "Solid Gold" and who gave a career boost to a young Carol Burnett years before becoming...

Burt StylerEmmy-winning TV writer
Burt Styler, 86, an Emmy-winning TV writer who had a long association with Bob Hope, died of heart failure June 13 at Providence Tarzana Medical Center, his family said.
Styler won an Emmy in 1972 for an...

Bob Pease, 70, a prominent Silicon Valley engineer and author of several books on analog chip design, died Saturday evening when his car crashed into a tree in Saratoga, Calif., southwest of San Jose.
Pease, who was not wearing a seat belt while...

Al Gordon, an Emmy Award-winning comedy writer who spent much of his more than 40-year career writing for Jack Benny's penny-pinching, vain and perennially 39-year-old persona, has died. He was 89.
Gordon died Wednesday of age-related causes at...

Fay Kanin, an Oscar-nominated screenwriter for the 1958 Clark Gable-Doris Day comedy "Teacher's Pet" and former president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, died Wednesday. She was 95.
In a writing career that spanned more than...

It wouldn't have been shocking for Universal Orlando to turn its Halloween Horror Nights event into a "greatest hits" package this year. Like a hungry vampire lurking around a darkened corner, many fans expected a "best...